VOKI

‍‍Strengths:

• It is free!
• Fun & interesting, students will spend time on it
• User- and viewer- friendly
• Ability to share "voki-videos" with others (students, teachers, parents, other classes)
• Easy to embed, in a variety of ways
  • embed to blogs, web pages (good for course pages/discussions), and social networking sites.
• Can email to a friend
• Students don’t need a microphone - they can use any telephone, including their personal cellphone.
  • Voki recordings can be called in by phone, created with text-to-speech (typing), using a microphone, or by uploading an MP3 file.
• For world language teachers, Voki is a great tool for recording auditory monologues.
• Students can remain anonymous by not revealing their actual picture and instead using an avatar when publishing to the world.
• Able to download a Voki to your phone
• Provides a new method of student presentation (can be viewed outside the classroom)
• Content friendly - can be integrated in any curriculum area.
• Preparing for a Voki creation enables students to carefully organize their thoughts
• Provides students with the opportunity to practice their speaking (and pronunciation) skills

‍‍Weaknesses:

• The maximum recording time is 60 seconds.
• If too many students are working at once on their recordings using their cellphones, the website can experience slow running time.
• Requires an email address to set up account, so that one can “keep” his/her Voki creations.
• TOO fun—making the avatar is so much fun that students lose their focus on task at hand, and spend more time making funny avatars.
• Users can experience frustration by not being able to keep the same avatar for future use (one needs to start from scratch every time you create a new Voki.)

‍‍Opportunities:

• Foreign language students can use Voki to practice, record and listen to their speech.
• Students can keep a “log” of Vokis to show progression of learning over a course.
• Students can use Voki as a “practice-run” for Podcasting.
• As well as recording their voice, students design an appropriate avatar, and can import a photo as a background or use a background from the Voki menus. This enables students to create an “authentic setting.”
• Teachers can create an account for each class and ask students to create a Voki character. Students can grab the code for a "web page" to include in a discussion message in the course or teachers could control which Voki appear. Even though students may want their own accounts, shared accounts give TEACHERS access to and control over the "class" content.

‍‍Threats:

• There are no limits on type of content or content filters.
• Teachers will have to monitor students’ work carefully to check on appropriateness.
• Students unaware of internet safety can easily reveal identifiable information about themselves.

‍‍Ideas for the classroom:

• Students can use Voki to create a class introduction, recording a message and using an avatar that resembles themselves.
• Students connect with others, by exchanging these Voki recordings with other classmates, and with other students in other schools.
• Foreign language students can use Voki to speak “in character” for different role-play assignments.
• Students can orally share their “writing pieces.”
• Anyone can use it for a classroom “newscast.”
• Can be used as an item in a student electronic portfolio
• As an “authentic” foreign language experience, students are writing, reading, revising, and speaking to an audience.
• To aid resource students, teacher can record oral pronunciation of vocabulary words as a review-guide for upcoming assessments.